Why hold a meeting of the world’s most illustrious central bankers in a sleepy, elk-inhabited backwater 1,900 miles from New York, 4,700 miles from London and 6,000 miles from Beijing? The answer is simple: trout.

When the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank first hosted its annual gathering of central bankers in 1978, it was a pretty parochial affair. Not many turned up in the first few years and there was no fixed venue.

The reserve bank decided it needed to land a big fish to attract other delegates and, in 1982, no one came much bigger than Paul Volcker, chairman